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T O P I C R E V I E W

Robert Pearlman

MSNBC reports that NASA is considering a plan to keep the shuttle Endeavour in flight-like condition after its last scheduled mission.

NASA has decided to study the option of keeping Endeavour in a flight-like condition at one of Kennedy Space Center's three Orbiter Processing Facilities, according to documents obtained by msnbc.com. This study is to examine what personnel and funding would be needed to retain Endeavour instead of giving it up...

"Our baseline plan continues to be to process the shuttle orbiters for retirement and prepare them for display after their last flights," [NASA spokesman Michael Curie] said Thursday in his e-mail. "As a what-if budget exercise, we are looking at what it would cost if a recipient was not ready to take an orbiter right away, and if we wanted to keep an orbiter in long-term storage for potential engineering analysis."

With no "lifeboat" 2nd orbiter standing by? Or maybe this is the lifeboat.

Robert Pearlman

The MSNBC article can be confusing as there are two separate proposals being discussed.

The first, the subject of this thread, is a NASA budget 'what-if' exercise to maintain Endeavour in flight-ready condition in storage, not to fly but rather to compensate for a museum recipient not being ready to accept it and for future engineering study.

The second, the subject of the other thread, is a commercial proposal by USA to fly both Endeavour and Atlantis. To discuss that plan, please click through to that topic.

moorouge

Do we have a definition of what NASA mean by "flight ready status"? Is it ready to launch in one week, one month, one year or what?